UO Today

A’Lelia Bundles is the author of "On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker," a book about her great-great-grandmother who was a successful entrepreneur in the early 20th century. Her nonfiction book is the inspiration for Self Made, a fictional Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer.

She will give a talk titled “Your First Duty Is to Humanity: Echoes of Derrick Bell in Madam C.J. Walker’s Activism and Entrepreneurship” as the UO Law School’s Derrick Bell Lecturer on February 9, 2022.

Poet Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach is author of the collections "The Many Names for Mother," "Don't Touch the Bones," and the forthcoming "40 WEEKS." She reads some poems and discusses her work. Dasbach will give a virtual reading on January 26, 2022 as a guest of the UO's Creative Writing Program (https://crwr.uoregon.edu).

https://ohc.uoregon.edu

What will it take to inspire and empower a critical mass to act in time to safeguard our climate, civilization, and the living world? In her new book, "Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World" (2021), Lund University sustainability scientist Kimberly Nicholas argues that it’s a combination of facts, feelings, and action. Three guiding principles to make this shift from exploitation to regeneration are to simultaneously promote human and planetary health and well-being; reduce harmful practices at their source; and strengthen the resilience of both human and natural communities. For each of us, figuring out how to contribute to, sustain, and find meaning and joy in this work is a primary duty of being alive at this moment.

Born and raised on her family’s vineyard in Sonoma, California, Nicholas studied the effect of climate change on the California wine industry for her PhD in Environment and Resources at Stanford University. In her research, she studies the connections between people, land, and climate. Her goal is to understand how to steward ecosystems to support a good life for everyone alive today, and leave a thriving planet for future generations.

Lynn Stephen, Anthropology, OHC/CAS subvention recipient and 2015-16 OHC research fellow.

From covering the massacre of students at Tlatelolco in 1968 and the 1985 earthquake to the Zapatista rebellion in 1994 and the disappearance of forty-three students in 2014, Elena Poniatowska has been one of the most important chroniclers of Mexican social, cultural, and political life. In Stories That Make History, Lynn Stephen examines Poniatowska’s writing, activism, and political participation, using them as a lens through which to understand critical moments in contemporary Mexican history. In her crónicas—narrative journalism written in a literary style featuring firsthand testimonies—Poniatowska told the stories of Mexico’s most marginalized people. Throughout, Stephen shows how Poniatowska helped shape Mexican politics and forge a multigenerational political community committed to social justice. In so doing, she presents a biographical and intellectual history of one of Mexico’s most cherished writers and a unique history of modern Mexico.

Terry McDonald is the Executive Director of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County. He has served SVdP for over 50 years, 37 as Executive Director. McDonald is an alumnus of the University of Oregon having earned a bachelor's degree in History and Political Science, and a master's degree in Education. He discusses the vast array of services SVdP provides, as well as its retail, recycling, and manufacturing enterprise.

Kimberly Nicholas, Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University in Sweden, is the author of "Under the Sky We Make: How to be Human in a Warming World" (2021), and the monthly climate newsletter “We Can Fix It.” In her research, she studies the connections between people, land, and climate. Her goal is to understand how to steward ecosystems to support a good life for everyone alive today, and leave a thriving planet for future generations. On January 12th, 2022, Nicholas will give a virtual talk “Facing Climate Change with Facts, Feelings, and Action” as the Oregon Humanities Center’s 2021-2022 Cressman Lecturer and part of the “Imagining Futures” series.

https://ohc.uoregon.edu

Krista Chronister, Vice Provost of Graduate Studies at the University of Oregon, and professor of Counseling Psychology in the College of Education, discusses her research on partner violence and survivors’ vocational and economic development. Chronister was named the VP of Graduate Studies in June 2021. She talks about her goals for the Division of Graduate Studies and how they support graduate students.

“Unsettled Ecologies: Alienated Species, Indigenous Restoration, and U.S. Empire in a Time of Climate Chaos”

Lisa Fink, PhD candidate, Environmental Studies, and 2021–22 OHC Dissertation Fellow.

This project  investigates  the relationship between environmental conservation discourses of species  invasion and the racialization of immigrants in the  U.S. In  doing so, it traces environmental thinking about invasive species from  Western/colonial, Indigenous, and anti-imperialist perspectives within  the  context of settler colonialism, immigration, and climate change   I examine how racial and settler colonial logics undergird Western/colonial  approaches, echoing anti-immigrant sentiment. Dialectically, I explore responses  emerging out of Indigenous and non-European settler communities  that do  important culture-shifting work around human-nature interaction and notions of belonging.

Daniel Martinez HoSang is an associate professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, and American Studies at Yale University; and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Political Science and serves on the Education Studies Advisory Committee. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale in 2017, HoSang was an associate professor (and department head) of Ethnic Studies and Political Science at the University of Oregon.

His new book A Wider Type of Freedom: How Struggles for Racial Justice Liberate Everyone (University of California Press, fall 2021) provides a survey of transformative visions of racial justice in the United States. HoSang brings together stories of the social movements, intellectuals, artists, and cultural formations that have centered racial justice and the abolition of white supremacy as the foundation for a universal liberation. He taps into moments across time and place to reveal the longstanding drive toward a vision of universal emancipation.

Ari Purnama, assistant professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Oregon, talks about growing up in Indonesia and what led to his interest in film studies and filmmaking. He discusses his approach to his scholarship as well as his practice as a filmmaker. Purnama recommends a film that he finds especially interesting.